Hi.  It’s time for another installment of Waste of the Week.  This one, like the first edition, is also from San Francisco.  So how do I feel about it?  It’s a tough call… I love the effort here, but there’s some simple improvements that can be made.  Actually, now that I think about it, this setup is pretty darn nice for those on the cheap.  Businesses take note.

Pros:

1) Cans are all different colors.  Different colors = less thinking = good.

2) Basic descriptions of each clearly posted…and with manners!

3) They’re composting.  Always good.

Cons:

1) Black bags.

Well, this one is more of a con for waste nerds and trash pickers…black bags aren’t easy to see into, and waste haulers aren’t going to know what’s in them either.  Bottom line, it leaves room for negative thoughts about the end result of the contents (actually, it makes me think of black garbage bags being used to throw away millions of tons of yard waste into landfills each year, which then gives me a serious headache).

2) No lids!

I need the two circular cutouts side-by-side on the blue one (commingled) for sure.  As for the black and green cans… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a special lid for compost cans of this size/model (aka the “slim jim”).  A compost lid should be a funky star-shaped cutout (that’s what you are when you compost), or maybe a simple oval would make more sense.  Anything to keep it from being an open void while remaining distinctive from the other two is fine by me.

3) It’s situated next to a bench.

HA!  Personally I don’t care about this at all, but there was actually an old lady complaining to another old lady that she didn’t want to sit on the bench because the “smelly rubbish bins” were right there…seriously.  This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed this, either.  On top of that, I think she was imagining the smell because all three cans were empty, which was a bummer because I was really curious if customers were using this setup properly.

Yeah, I like this setup.  Pretty nice.  I would be totally happy if most businesses took this on.

The next Waste of the Week installment is going to be the lamest waste receptacle I can find… oh, the suspense!